


Beggars and Choosers

by Make_It_Worse



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Mob, Drinking to Cope, Eventual Romance, M/M, Moral Dilemmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-22 19:18:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19977370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Make_It_Worse/pseuds/Make_It_Worse
Summary: “For hundreds of years, people came here to extract silver,” the older man mutters from behind the bar, rubbing a dirty rag inside a dirtier glass. The few patrons that frequent this place don’t come here for its health rating.“Why’d they stop?” Connor asks, picking his head up from the counter. The world sways a little, but he isn’t so drunk he can’t carry on casual conversation.The man gives him a once over and nods his head toward the window, “The silver ran dry. Developers came. Built houses tall enough to touch the sky. Then the apartments came. Then the slums. Families packed like sardines on top of other families. A stinking city raped of her worth.”Connor winces, wishing he hadn’t asked. He slaps a $20 onto the bar and pulls himself to his feet. His ankles seem at war with his toes and walking is more of a challenge than usual. He doesn’t want to be here anymore.__Connor set out to save a dying city. Ideals only go so far when corruption lies in the beating hearts of men.





	Beggars and Choosers

“For hundreds of years, people came here to extract silver,” the older man mutters from behind the bar, rubbing a dirty rag inside a dirtier glass. The few patrons that frequent this place don’t come here for its health rating.

“Why’d they stop?” Connor asks, picking his head up from the counter. The world sways a little, but he isn’t so drunk he can’t carry on casual conversation.

The man gives him a once over and nods his head toward the window, “The silver ran dry. Developers came. Built houses tall enough to touch the sky. Then the apartments came. Then the slums. Families packed like sardines on top of other families. A stinking city raped of her worth.”

Connor winces, wishing he hadn’t asked. He slaps a $20 onto the bar and pulls himself to his feet. His ankles seem at war with his toes and walking is more of a challenge than usual. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. A tattooed arm pulls the crumpled bill behind the counter and the register chimes as Connor pushes through the saloon doors.

In the morning, he drags himself out of bed, back to the acrid construction site. Dirt is heavy in the air, and the damp cloth over his face does little to alleviate the dust getting into his lungs. One man quits and another falls to the tune of a broken leg.

Connor would worry about a worker’s compensation claim, but this isn’t Detroit. He’d come here on tales of riches and opportunity. He’d found misery, construction work, and little else. He had a fancy title and money enough, but the houses he built were little more than graves. These people would die before they escaped.

He wonders if it’s possible for a person to hate themselves more. Finding himself once more at the bar, the same middle-aged man serves him drinks just a hair too strong. Connor doesn’t mind. The burn is a nice distraction from the grit of dust coating his throat.

“Why do you do it?” The barman asks without preamble and Connor squints at him.

“Why do I do what?” He sips his second drink, waiting for the other shoe to fall. The barman must know what Connor does for a living.

“Why not go home? You hate it here.” Connor isn’t prepared to answer simple questions with complicated answers. He could go back, true. Tail between his legs, he could sleep on Richard’s couch or face his mother’s disapproval.

Neither is appealing. Neither is an option. He’s a monster; he won’t leave his shadowy corner of the world for different haunts.

“I’m not welcome there,” he settles on finally.

“You’re not welcome here, either,” the barman replies smoothly, sliding a third drink into Connor’s pale hands.

He’s on the verge of telling the man to go to hell when he interrupts Connor’s ire, “You could change that, you know. You don’t have to be what they tell you to be. I’ve seen more men like you than I can count. You come looking for your fortunes and you find a dying city instead. You panic and steal the last bit of lifeblood she has left in hopes of salvaging your investment. It costs you more than you think to add your own nail to this city’s coffin.”

“I don’t have any say in what we build. I just oversee the construction,” Connor counters the argument. He’s just one man; he can’t make a difference.

“Didn’t say you had to build anything,” the man replies conversationally, but Connor is tired of his enigmatic banter. He downs his drink in one, not bothering to watch the tattooed arm accept his money.

Three drinks aren’t enough for dreamless sleep, but he doesn’t have a hangover for the first time in weeks. He forgot what it felt like to have his brain operating at full capacity. Another worker quits and two more show up to replace him. They’re young—too young—and Connor’s self-loathing digs a deeper hole as he watches them don construction helmets a shade too big for them.

He resigns by the end of the day. One of the new boys lost a finger in an accident; he’d cried out for his mother.

“They’re _children_ ,” he’d all but bellowed into Kamski’s face.

The man’s too thin eyebrows arched sardonically on his bloodless face, “When did you grow a conscience?” Connor thought about taking a swing at him, but he needs his final paycheck. He squares up with the barely legal excuse that is HR for this company and makes his way to the bar.

The greying barman looks at him in surprise, “You’re early.”

“I’m celebrating,” Connor replies, sarcasm dripping from his lips like sweat.

“You quit,” the man answers, and Connor isn’t surprised to hear approval in his voice.

“Yeah, so I’m not going to be able to afford this place after today,” he glances down at the drink the big man had slid into his hands. He’s surprised to see it’s black coffee.

“You could work for me,” the barman offers and Connor laughs.

Seeing the man’s face doesn’t waver, he splutters, “You’re serious? Work the bar? I don’t know any drinks.”

Steady blue eyes look Connor over as if reconsidering what he’s about to offer. In the end, the man shakes his head. Readjusting his belt beneath the slight swell of his belly, he strolls to the doors, locking the swinging entrance before hanging a closed sign. It’s a meager attempt at locking the bar, anyone could crawl in if they wanted, but it’s the middle of the day. Most of the city’s occupants are slaving away, building slums for the desperate.

He waves at Connor to follow him to the back office and he obeys the gesture out of curiosity, “This city doesn’t need more slums or more bars. Drinking to forget isn’t a long term solution. It needs hope.”

“And me as another drink slinger helps achieve that goal how?” Connor sits with ill grace in the seat on the other side of the man’s desk. He sees a name plaque: Hank Anderson. Something tickles at the back of his mind—a memory trying to break free—but Hank resumes the conversation and Connor lets it go.

“I know you. You’re no site supervisor. Construction isn’t your forte. You don’t make buildings; you build communities.” Connor grumbles at Hank that anyone can use Google.

It was true, Connor used to help develop community centers back in Detroit. He helped pull it back from the brink of disaster in 2039. He’d stupidly believed he could do the same for this far away city nestled in the heart of hell. He thought he could make a difference. His efforts vanished into the ground like water in sand.

“You know what it takes,” Hank insists. “And I know how to make it stick.”

Connor throws a doubtful look in Hank’s direction, “Running a bar makes you, what? The mayor of Hopeville?”

To his surprise, Hank shoots him a grin. It’s quick and the tiny gap between his teeth vanishes before Connor can get a good look at it, “People need to develop connections. They need encouragement to hold on just a little while longer. They need respect and to know they matter. Above all, they need protection from the piranhas like Elijah Kamski.”

“Your pie in the sky idealism is nice and all, but those things take money and property. I’m the only damn patron you have most nights and the daytime doesn’t look much better either.” As soon as the words are out of Connor’s mouth, doubts begin to assault him. He feels the ripple of fear across the back of his neck as cold sweat needles his armpits. How was Hank keeping the bar running? How hadn’t Connor noticed it sooner?

“Drink has a way of muddling a man’s good senses,” Hank says, providing an answer to Connor’s silent question. He curses his drunken melancholy. Absorbed in his daily pity parties, he’d allowed drink to distract him from something obvious.

“I have an offer for you, Mr. Stern.” Hank steeples his fingers together, leaning forward on his elbows. He looks every inch the experienced businessman.

“Anderson,” Connor whispers horrified as the name lodges free from the murky depths of memory.

“I know what it’s like to run away from home. Detroit used to be my city too. Once upon a time, anyway.” Connor’s mouth goes dry. Hank Anderson, a known affiliate of the illegal drug network that plagued Detroit for years. As far as Connor knew, no one had seen the man operate. His name was a ghost story, whispered at night to frighten citizens into compliance.

Raids had become far too common. Drugs had overrun the city and nearly everyone was hooked on one substance or another. Connor had labored hard to beat back the opioid mistress that leashed so many in his hometown.

“You nearly sent Detroit over the brink. You’re worse than…you’re—” Connor rises abruptly, turning to leave the office.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge if I were you. The police were far more effective than I at disseminating drugs to the marginalized.”

Hank’s words slow his stride and Connor turns with his hand on the doorknob, “Bullshit.”

Hank’s catlike grin makes Connor feel far too much like a canary and his heart flutters in panic, “You remember Perkins, right?” Connor winces at the name, giving Hank his answer.

“He was always in the way, always interrupting your plans for community growth. He stonewalled you at every possible opportunity. Didn’t you ever wonder why?” Connor glares at Hank but the man does little more than settle back into his chair more comfortably.

“I assumed you and your kind had a hold on him. No one believed me.” Connor meets Hank’s calm blue gaze, attempting to appear braver than he feels.

“Everyone believed you. No one _cared_.” Hank corrects Connor’s statement before continuing, “But it’s neither here nor there. Perkins wasn’t one of mine and he was a problem. And then he wasn’t.”

Connor’s blood slows, turning to ice in his veins, “What did you do?”

“Removed an undesirable element. Nothing more.” Perkins had vanished and Connor hadn’t given it much thought. When one has dealings with the Detroit underground, one has a tendency to disappear as if erased from the globe.

“Back to my offer,” Hank gestures to the chair again. Connor doesn’t take it, but he doesn’t leave either.

“What if I’m not interested,” Connor tests the waters, seeing how far he can push.

Hank tilts his head slightly, “Then I would suggest you get off my island before the sun sets.”

Connor resists the urge to swallow, “What are you proposing?”

Connor is unsurprised to learn Kamski is dirty, funneling the same drugs to the populace here that inundated Detroit.

“We cut off his access, one supplier at a time,” Hank says it simply as if this is an easy task.

“And where do the drugs go? Whose lives are we ruining to save the ones here?” Connor isn’t stupid. He knows the money has to come from somewhere.

Hank bears his teeth in a grin that is more dangerous than friendly, “Men who ask such questions of me usually find themselves face down in the river.”

“Men who want to capitalize on my expertise know that I don’t traffic in drugs.” Connor has bent further than he thought possible, but he won’t commit to this. It’s worse than the construction.

Hank inclines his head, “Ah, yes. Your moral compass. I’d forgotten in the years between our last deal and now.”

Connor startles, “I’ve never worked with y—”

“Manfred Enterprises has its fingers in an awful lot of pies,” Hank waits for the information to sink into Connor’s skin and he clearly enjoys the effect. Gooseflesh erupts in waves and Connor shudders.

“You’re a monster,” Connor hisses.

Hank tips an imaginary hat in Connor’s direction, “From one monster to another, I assure you, I am the lesser of two evils here. You have my word that the drugs are not going to people.”

Connor narrows his eyes at that. There’s more than one use for the drugs people inject into their veins, “Weapons. Chemical weapons.”

Hank doesn’t nod, but he doesn’t deny the implication.

“What on earth makes you think I would agree to that?”

Hank reaches out, stroking at an old mahogany clock on his desk, “We are incredibly choosy about who we sell to, Connor. You needn’t worry about enemies foreign and domestic, if that’s your concern. Believe me, our allies pay better.”

It’s flimsy, Connor knows. He’s certain there is a lie hidden somewhere in Hank’s suave persuasion, “What would be my part?”

Something soft settles on Hank’s features and it makes him look more like the barman Connor’s come to know than a syndicate leader, “You’d be the face of our new business venture. You’re young, well known until recent months in your community-building efforts, and you’re attractive. I’m too old and ugly to do the job well.”

Hank’s eyes rove over Connor appreciatively and Connor can’t fight the blush that rises up his collar. Connor clears his throat, which suddenly feels much too tight. Not having a response to the unexpected compliment, he blurts out, “You’re not ugly.”

Hank laughs rich and deep at the comment and Connor’s blush consumes his face entirely. Trying to regain control of the situation, he brings matters back to business, “What is this new venture?”

Hank slides back in his chair to open a drawer. He unrolls a blueprint on his desk, beckoning for Connor to take a look.

“It’s a community center,” Connor says quietly as Hank rises to circle around the desk. “This looks a lot like—”

“The community center you built in Detroit, yes.” Hank’s voice is quiet and much too close to Connor’s ear. His head swivels to look at the man. Hank’s left hand presses to the small of Connor’s back while his right points at the plans in front of him.

“There will be bingo for the old ladies, a basketball court and tennis court for kids and families. We’ll host weekly game nights as well and anything else you can dream up in that pretty head of yours.” He says it all like it’s a foregone conclusion that Connor will agree.

“It isn’t going to be easy to convert a bar into all this,” Connor says warily, trying to sidestep from under Hank’s touch.

The pressure on his spine increases, “I didn’t say we’d be using the bar. I have another property lined up already. In fact, my contacts with the Manfred’s are in the process of completing the sale now.”

Connor eyes him suspiciously. He can sense a carrot waiting to dangle, “Perhaps you are familiar with the arcade built by Kamski Enterprises? The one that cost this city millions and folded within months?”

Connor stumbles forcefully away from Hank. He knows the building well. He’d overseen its construction, cementing his status as another foreign devil come to ravage this place. He hadn’t known then that it was doomed to fail. It had marked the beginning of his drinking and moral decline.

“Are you serious about saving this city?” Connor whispers the question, the first flicker of hope kindling in his chest since his first venture sank into the ground.

“You know my reputation. You know my word is good.” Connor gnaws at his bottom lip, trying to see the situation from all angles. He could walk away. He could leave this place and return home with a badly tarnished reputation. Or he could stay. He could sell his soul to a different demon for the sake of good.

The memory of the little boy’s severed finger makes the decision for him, “Where do I sign?”

Hank laughs at Connor’s inexperience, “There is nothing so formal as that. We don’t want you linked to me.”

Markus Manfred faxes the pertinent documents the next day. Connor spends several hours poring over them, making sure he knows exactly what he’s signing. Within three months, the center is up and running and Connor gives his first press briefing.

The camera lights are dazzling and he feels alive in a way he hasn’t since setting foot in this place. He pushes through the saloon doors to order a drink for the first time since taking his place in Hank’s inner circle.

“What are we celebrating,” Hank asks, amused. He continues to work the bar. Appearances had to be maintained.

“Elijah Kamski sent me a letter by courier today. It’s a threat to take legal action.” Hank laughs and pours Connor two fingers of his finest whiskey.

“And this makes you happy?” He winks conspiratorially and Connor downs the drink. He knows he should sip it, but he wants to be tipsy. His heart feels lighter than it has in months and he wants his head to follow it, aided by alcohol. Hank arches an eyebrow, pouring Connor another.

“He’s panicking. The first domino has fallen.” Connor takes a hearty gulp, finishing half the drink. He sips the rest like he should.

“It won’t be long now,” Hank murmurs in agreement. Through his network, Hank had severed Elijah’s hold on the drug trade. Connor never saw the product, but he did see the results. The laughter of children rang out most days now from the center. It’s not how he envisioned his life when he came to this place, but necessity knows no law.

The whiskey suffuses his body with a comforting warmth and he feels a giggle bubble up his throat, “I don’t usually drink hard liquor.”

Hank watches him with lidded eyes, “I know.”

“Join me.” It’s not a request, but Hank gives him an easy shrug.

“Shouldn’t drink on the job,” he counters.

Connor’s eyes glow a warm brown, pleading silently. A small smile tickles at the corner of Hank’s lips, “One drink won’t do any harm.”

He pours them both a smaller shot, gesturing at Connor to clink glasses in a cheer. Instead, Connor presses his toes into the bottom rung of the stool to lean his torso across the bar.

He links his arm through Hank’s, a small challenge on his face, “To us and our future endeavors.”

“To us,” Hank echoes, his voice low and deep before downing the drink. Connor takes the empty shot glass from Hank’s fingers. They’re dry and warm like a paperback novel left out in the sun.

He touches Hank’s beard, thumbing at the droplet of alcohol clinging there. Liquid courage may be making moves he can’t take back the morning, but he feels electric and alive under Hank’s blue gaze.

“You have a bit of something here,” Connor says by way of explanation for the inappropriate touch. He waits for a dismissal or a reprimand.

Hank exhales and the warmth of it ghosts over Connor’s fingers, “Maybe you should do something about that.”

Connor’s eyes grow dark at Hank’s words; they’re more pupil than iris, “Maybe I will.”

He speaks the words into Hank’s mouth, followed by the press of his lips.

In moments like this, it’s easy to forget that Hank is a dangerous man. It’s a simple thing to pretend drugs aren’t fueling their efforts to save this city. It’s no matter at all to disregard his own dirty hands when he’s falling apart beneath Hank’s nimble fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/WorseMake).


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